MailChimp Integration

About MailChimpMailchimp is an online email marketing solution that allows you to send marketing emails and targeted campaigns to you clients. Not only does it get around the various problems that occur when trying to send out a large numbers of emails such as rate limiting and blocking by ISP’s, it also allows you to monitor metrics such as bounced and viewed emails in addition to click through rates.

Using MailChimp is ideal for sending your regular newsletters or practice updates and the best thing is that it is free for most practices with less than 2,000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails per month.

Front Desk’s MailChimp integration allows you to upload your client list to MailChimp, and keep it in sync with changes to Front Desk patient files. Front Desk also allows you to produce subgroups of this list (called segments) by using the existing Front Desk reports. The topics on this page should be used in conjunction with MailChimp’s documentation.

The topics below assume you already have a
MailChimp account, and some prior knowledge of MailChimp.

Create a list in MailChimp

To begin using MailChimp integration, you first
need to have an active MailChimp account and create a ‘List’,
which will be synced to Front Desk and contain your subscribers.
This list can be managed from both Front Desk and MailChimp as it
syncs in both directions.

Step 1

Log in to your MailChimp
account, select Lists, and click the Create List button. Smartsoft
recommends that you create a new list containing only your Front Desk
client list.

Step 2

Enter the required details for your list, and
click Save.

Step 3

Your MailChimp list is now ready for you to upload
your client list.

Enable MailChimp integration and uploading your
patients

With your ‘List’ created, you now need to link
your Front Desk system to MailChimp, before uploading your patients
as MailChimp ‘subscribers’.

Step 1

First you must obtain an API key from MailChimp.
Go to your account details, select Extras, and API keys.

Step 2

If you don’t already have an API Key listed,
click Create a Key. Otherwise, highlight and copy your API
Key.

Step 3

In Front Desk, go to the MailChimp tab in
System Information. Tick Enable MailChimp Integration
and paste your MailChimp API Key. Then click Connect to
MailChimp.

Step 4

If successful, the following message will be
displayed.

Step 5

The details of your account will be displayed to
you, along with your MailChimp lists. If you have not yet created a
list, please do so now.

By default, archived patients will be excluded
from the MailChimp sync, but if you want to include them, untick
Exclude Archived Patients. Select your list, and click Sync.

Step 6

Click Yes to the confirmation message.

Step 7

If your client list is large, the upload progress
will be displayed, which can be cancelled at any time. If you decide
to cancel, the sync can be resumed later.

Step 8

Once complete, the results of the sync will be
displayed. This lists successful additions, along with any errors
that have occurred. Click Close.

Step 9

Your list Members should have been updated
to reflect your new list size. The Last Sync date will also
have been updated.

Resolving duplicate email addresses

MailChimp doesn’t allow more than one subscriber
with the same email address, so before each MailChimp sync Front Desk
will check your clients for duplicate email addresses. For each
duplicate email address you must select a primary contact. The
primary contact will be the one whose details are included in the
MailChimp sync. These are the details that will be included in any
MailChimp campaigns, should you choose to personalise them by using
list fields / merge tags. For example, if you have several members of
a family in your client list, all of whom share an email address, one
of those people will need to be selected before they will be synced
to MailChimp.

Step 1

After clicking Sync, or before adding
patients to a segment, you may see the following message.

Step 2

You will be presented with a list of any patients
with duplicate email addresses. For each one you can choose to do
nothing (in which case they will not be uploaded to MailChimp), or
select a primary contact.

Step 3

If you need to change the primary contact for a
patient you can do this using the MailChimp button, situated
next to the Email field on patient files which have a
duplicate email address.

Note: patients who haven’t been chosen to be the
primary contact for their email address can’t be unsubscribed from
MailChimp. You must unsubscribe the primary contact. The MailChimp
checkbox on these patients will be unavailable.

Unsubscribing

Patients can unsubscribe themselves from your
MailChimp list by clicking the unsubscribe link in your email
campaigns. Patients unsubscribed in this way cannot be subscribed
again using Front Desk.

You can choose to unsubscribe a patient by
unticking the MailChimp checkbox on the patient’s file. The
patient will be removed from your MailChimp list at the next sync. At
any time you can resubscribe the patient by ticking the MailChimp
checkbox again.

Patients will be automatically unsubscribed from
your list if they are deleted from Front Desk. They will also be
unsubscribed if you archive them, and you have chosen to Exclude
Archived Patients.

Front Desk’s MailChimp integration allows you to upload your
client list to MailChimp,
and keep it in sync with changes to Front Desk patient files. Front Desk also
allows you to produce subgroups of this list (called segments) by using the existing
Front Desk reports. The topics on this page should be used in conjunction with MailChimp’s documentation.

The topics below assume you already have a MailChimp
account, and some prior knowledge of MailChimp.

Segments

A segment is a subgroup of your patient list.
Segments can be used to target a campaign at a particular section of
your patients. Front Desk can create segments easily using many of
the available reports – For example you could create a segment
using the ‘Recall Patient List’ to target patients with an
upcoming recall.

If your list contains no segments you will be
prompted to enter a New Segment Name.

Step 3

The MailChimp Segments window will be
displayed. This contains all of your segments. The number of selected
patients is displayed at the top.

Step 4

You can choose to add the selected patients to one
of your current segments, or to create a New Segment.
Highlight the segment you wish to use, and click Add to Segment.
You will be asked to confirm before Front Desk continues.

Step 5

When complete, Front Desk will display the
following message.

Step 6

If any errors occurred, which could happen if
trying to add a patient who has been unsubscribed from your list,
Front Desk will display a summary of the failed email addresses.

Step 7

You can also use the MailChimp Segments
window to create a New Segment, Reset (remove all of
the patients from) a segment, or Delete a segment.

Step 8

When creating your campaign on the MailChimp
website, you can choose to send to any of the segments created
through Front Desk.

Front Desk will automatically sync with MailChimp every time you use the MailChimp button from a report in Front Desk to either create or update a segment (subset of your patients).

If you are using MailChimp to email all of your clients (and not using the segment feature) you should first go to the MailChimp tab in System Information and use the Sync button to manually update your contact list. We have included this feature in the event that a user does not want to use segments, though in our experience segments help you reach your target market more effectively.